The present invention relates to a series of improvements introduced in connection with olive pitting and stuffing olives machines of the type used for stuffing with anchovies, that is to say, machines designed for pitting and then stuffing the previously pitted olives with anchovies, which improvements have an effect both on the devices for stuffing olives with anchovies or with other products and the devices for eliminating the pit and further recovering that portion of the olive which is removed in order to permit the extraction of the pit from the olive. That portion is ordinarily known in the trade as a "tapin".
Briefly, the invention provides a machine capable of receiving the olives from a corresponding feed chain, fixing said olives unitarily, causing extraction of the pit, retaining the tapin ripped by the action of the pit being extracted, introducing inside the hollow interior of the olive anchovy dough or another product suitable for that cavity, and, finally, closing the olive cavity with the cooperation of the tapin which was loosened during the pitting stage, or, alternatively, recovering the tapin and placing it aside. Furthermore, all of these operations are carried out in a sequential manner, in a continual process, resulting in a high operative speed for the machine.
As opposed to the classical and already obsolete olive pitting and stuffing machines, of alternative operation, there have been known for a long time now continual operation machines, which basically incorporate a drum mounted rotatably about a fixed horizontal shaft, in the periphery of which are established a number of pitting and stuffing elements which can be activated by means of corresponding eccentrics or cams, in a manner such that the different operating stages to which each one of the olives is subjected take place at a zone of the periphery of the drum, as the drum advances in its continuous rotation, all of which is carried out such that the olives reach the drum unitarily, duly synchronized with the perimetral movements of said drum, and the mechanisms of the drum act simultaneously upon a certain number of olives, in a manner such that, while a first olive is being received, a second olive is going through the pitting stage, a third olive is being stuffed, a fourth olive is receiving the closing tapin and a fifth olive is leaving the machine, jointly with another series of intermediate stages which will vary depending on the different type of machines, the description of which machines is not considered necessary.
Machines of this type, i.e. olive pitting and stuffing machines of continual operation, are the subject matter of several patents, among which is Spanish Pat. No. 428.593, owned by the applicants' assignee.
In more concrete terms, the existing patents contemplate a structure based on punches capable of punching the olive pulp while the olive remains stationary, cutting rods cooperate with these punches and remove the tapin from the olive, providing an opening through which the pit of the olive is taken away by means of the aforesaid punches, thereby leaving the olive in perfect condition to receive the corresponding stuffing dough.
However, all of those previously disclosed machines present inconveniences in regard to the means for fixing the olive throughout the process to which it will be subjected, lack means for fixing the pit until the moment in which its elimination is found to be convenient. Additionally they are provided for stuffing the olive with strips of pepper, and so such machines are not suitable for stuffing with products presented in the form of a dough, as in the case of the anchovy. Particularly, in the case of the introduction of a little strip of pepper, a punch is used. Such a punch fastens the strip of pepper at its middle zone, bends it over itself and introduces the folded strip inside the hollow interior of the olive. The pepper strip introducing punch would be inoperative if one attempted to use it to introduce inside the olive not a strip of a certain rigidity and considerable consistency, such as a pepper strip has. but rather a uniform dough of a much lesser consistency.
Last of all, in regard to other conventional machines which contemplate that the olive stuffing used be an anchovy dough, the stuffing operation is carried out with a similar complex structure of a high cost and limited results, specifically, with the cooperation of two parallel plates, one of which is placed outside the pitting drum. That structure is usually designed to supply predetermined dosages of anchovy dough which are displaced radially towards the second plate where they will be received inside corresponding housings, with which housings cooperates a pushing rod which facilitates the subsequent and definitive displacement of the dough towards the hollow interior of the olive.